Ancient Egypt in Popular Culture during World War II. The Case of Agatha Christie’s ‘Death Comes as the End’

A prominent example of the representation of ancient Egypt in popular culture dated to World War II is the British author Agatha Christie’s detective novel ‘Death Comes as the End’, which is set in ancient Egypt. The present article explores how social stratification, in this case with regard to gender and class, is portrayed in Christie’s novel, against the backdrop of the common perceptions of ancient Egypt as a place where women enjoyed a comparatively high social status and where commoners formed a shapeless and powerless mass of people. The study finds that Christie’s novel largely aligns with these common perceptions, although the gender representations in the novel are multifaceted and the flat and sparse representations of commoners may be partly explained by the author’s need to delimit the number of suspects. The study also finds that class appears to intersect with ‘race’.